They were so much more fun when they knew their place. Everyone called them "the Zags." This is not Gonzaga's official nickname, but there are lots of Bulldogs out there. Only one Zags.

The whole point of the Zags initially seemed to be that they didn't know their place. Although members of the mid-major West Coast Conference, they showed up in the Elite Eight in 1999, the Sweet 16 in 2000 and 2001, and the college basketball world fell in love. Once an obscure northwest college known to sports fans only for producing the great John Stockton, they became a brand name and a television attraction. They became the definitive "Cinderella"; a blog site covering the team calls itself The Slipper Still Fits.

This appears to be different, though. Even after more than a decade of prominence, Gonzaga is exploring territory that, for the Zags, is uncharted. They are No. 3 in the Associated Press poll, a level they've reached before only in 2004. More to the point, they are being discussed as a potential No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. As long as Joe Lunardi has been doing "Bracketology" for ESPN, he never has projected the Zags as a No. 1 seed. Now, he has.

"Perhaps they’re better. Maybe we’ll realize that we’ve made a mistake by failing to grant the Zags more street credit as one of the country’s top two or three squads come March,” ESPN’s Myron Medcalf wrote recently. “Right now, however, it’s difficult to reward a program that is rumbling through a league with so little competition."

The Zags still are called mid-major by many, which is strange. They play in one of college basketball's finer arenas. They travel to road games on private planes. They recruit 4-star prospects such as guard Gary Bell Jr. They've produced more NBA players in the past 10 years than such major-conference powers as Pitt, Oklahoma, Cal and Indiana.

The only thing remotely mid-major about the Zags is the conference in which they play, and even that has grown more challenging during their reign. Saint Mary's emerged as a legitimate conference contender, winning the regular-season title in 2012, sharing it with the Zags in 2011, reaching the Sweet 16 as WCC runner-up in 2010. BYU, which has 27 NCAA Tournament appearances, was added as a member before last season.

With the Zags undefeated in the WCC and winning by an average of 19.9 points, however, come the complaints that the conference is not competitive enough — rather than the sort of applause that greeted Florida's early romp through an SEC that ranks only two spots higher than the WCC in the Ratings Percentage Index standings.

Santa Clara is 19-9 overall, beat Atlantic 10 leader Saint Louis and lost by only 13 in a visit to Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium. Upon traveling to play the Zags on Wednesday, Santa Clara lost by 43. Coach Kerry Keating called the Zags "one of the best teams in the country." Not everyone concurs.

What is lacking, as so often is the case in college basketball discussions, is context.

Gonzaga has played the No. 56 schedule in college basketball this season. Among the teams who've played tougher schedules are NCAA Tournament non-factors such as South Florida, Southern Cal, Washington and Vanderbilt. So who you play is certainly not the defining measure of how you'll play.

Many of the teams contending for No. 1 seeds are not near the top of the schedule ranking list. Indiana, which is first in the news-service polls, has a schedule strength ranking of 25. Michigan is 32. Florida is 20.

Over the past 10 years, we've had NCAA champions with schedule ratings of 66 (2006 Florida), 50 (2008 Kansas) and 40 (2003 Syracuse). The first two of those teams earned No. 1 seeds. So Gonzaga's schedule, regardless of its conference, is not so poor as to exclude the team from championship contention.

There remains a common belief that a team not tested at a high level through conference play will not be properly prepared for the many great opponents that await in the NCAA Tournament. It is astounding this notion persists, given that Butler played in two of the past three national championship games after entering with schedule ranks of 76 each time. But it does.

Gonzaga, as it always does, had intended to play a challenging non-conference schedule this season. But West Virginia, its opponent in ESPN's 24-hour basketball marathon, has been surprisingly feeble. Oklahoma and Davidson, neither an elite power, turned out to be the best opponents in the Old Spice Classic field. Games against Washington State and Baylor did not provide the expected challenges.

Through all of that, however, Gonzaga has continued to evolve and develop as a team. Center Kelly Olynyk has emerged as an All-American candidate, the kind of star-level player opponents must game-plan to stop. Bell has shaken off nagging health issues and begun to perform well again as a defender and scorer. The bench offers versatility and productivity.

If Gonzaga is awarded a No. 1 seed when the Selection Committee completes its deliberations March 17, it will be relatively historic. UNLV got top seeds out of the Big West, Memphis out of the post-expansion Conference USA. The Rebels conjured a few Final Fours and a national title out of those designations, and the Tigers lost in the 2008 title game. Those teams did what they did because of their strengths as a team and how those were addressed and enhanced through the course of the season.

Who a team plays does not definite its greatness. That's a personal matter. The Zags will decide how far they're able to go.